What ails
you? Is it depression, allergies, obesity, chronic fatigue,
or arthritis? Is it, perhaps, some other vague, nameless
ailment for which the TV is constantly pushing pills so
toxic that the manufacturer’s warnings at the end
of the ad are enough to scare you to death? Perhaps, you
are simply world-weary; or, perhaps, it is hard to fathom
what witch’s brew of these common ailments is really
at the root of your malaise. You just plain feel awful much
of the time.

What
if the therapy for much of what ails you is potentially
as close at hand as your own backyard? Now that would be
a Victory Garden! But we’re not proposing a return
to nice, neat rows of vegetables lined up for you to weed,
water and worry over daily. We’re talking about every
inch of your property working in concert to create health
for you, all the lifeforms that share your habitat, and
the land herself. We’re talking about letting Mother
Nature be your head gardener. Once you’ve helped Her
re-establish a holistic, biodiverse and integrated garden,
She will shoulder most of the maintenance Herself. Toby
Hemenway’s book, Gaia’s Garden, introduced us
to the idea of permaculture, a philosophy that stresses
the maintenance of agriculture by relying on renewable resources,
compatibility with the local ecosystem, and nature’s
own way of nurturing healthy life. We are suggesting that
permaculture can also provide an alternative therapy for
most of what ails you.

Traveling
the countryside of Maine, we notice fields of fruits and
vegetables lined up in tidy rows. Sometimes, a field of
one crop seems to march off into infinity. If you are a
city dweller, you probably don’t think much about
these rows of food. Some of them are used to feed animals,
and some eventually wind up on our dining room tables, via
an unknown route of processing, packaging, and distribution.
God only knows what has been sprayed onto, inoculated into,
or stripped out of these crops. It is even harder to divine
what illnesses may result. No labeling is required to identify
whether nature or genetic engineering has produced it. While
we are fortunate in Maine that our local crops probably
aren’t bioengineered, it will take a major focus,
spearheaded by GE-Free Maine and Maine Organic Farmers and
Gardeners Association, to keep it that way.

When
we venture even further beyond these farm fields, we often
come to forests that appear to the acculturated eye to be
thrown haphazardly about. You might find a pine tree nestling
with a birch, with ferns growing underneath and squirrels
flying from limb to limb above piles of deer feces that
appear like tiny pellets from a toy pistol. One ad even
suggests that the water from such “wilderness”
is contaminated by the bio-functions of filthy animal life.
Wouldn’t you rather have scientifically “purified”
water? Unfortunately, many Americans buy into this view
of wilderness as unproductive land that could be more usefully
developed as agribusiness, housing. or, better yet, a Wal-Mart.
That’s assuming, of course, that no valuable fossil
fuels underlie it.

Many,
including Theodore Roszak. see these “cultivated”
ideas about productivity as being the roots of many social,
planetary and individual ills (Roszak, 2001). For example,
when we monoculture our fields, producing acres of a single
product such as corn, we deplete the soil of nutrients and
allow for the proliferation of predatory bugs and diseases.
This process virtually requires the use of oil-based chemical
fertilizers that further threaten our health. Moreover,
we lay out an inviting feast for all the lifeforms that
thrive on that particular crop. Then, of course, to control
these bugs and microbes, we need to use pesticides that
again get into the soil and are washed away into the watershed.
What’s more. we wind up ingesting these bug killers
in the foods we eat as well as the water we drink. All this
poison directly affects our health. Recently, we have developed
bioengineered mutations of the crop that are resistant to
the common predators. Thus, more and more field goes to
a single biological strain which Nature, ingenious as She
is, will eventually wipe out with some new, unanticipated
strain of predator. Meanwhile, those few who may be allergic
to that particular strain of corn, wheat, soy or whatever…oh
well, too bad for them.

This
is an oversimplified explanation of the consequences of
modern monoculture. The situation is much more complex and
dangerous than there is room to elucidate here. As all spiritual
traditions teach, our actions have consequences not only
for the world, but also for ourselves. Our traditional economy
and methods of food distribution are hurting ourselves,
our children, our small family farmers, and people across
the world. In our global economy that thrives on monoculture
farming by big agribusiness, we have created an international
mess. We have increased starvation by displacing those that
once were independently farming diverse crops for family
use and sale within their local economies. Now those that
continue to farm are dependent on global trade that primarily
functions to benefit the richest 2% of the world’s
population. This is why there are such passionate displays
of resistance as we recently saw at the World Trade meeting
in Korea.

A whole
book could be written on how permaculture gardening would
help the world situation for small family farmers. Moreover,
permaculture gardening is an avenue towards robust local
economies that would solve many of our social ills, including
some of our dependency on fossil fuels. In this paper, however,
we are focusing on permaculture as an important component
of a healthy lifestyle for ourselves and our families.

The psychological,
spiritual and physical benefits of gardening have long been
given attention in the healthy living literature such as
the Rodale publications. Exercise, engagement, and accomplishment
are important attributes of physical and psychological health.
Not only are you working in relationship with the products
you are growing, making sure you are ingesting healthy,
unadulterated, fresh foods, you are also realizing your
role in the ecosystem. If monetary worries contribute to
your health-depleting stress level, such gardening will
save enough money to lower your stress level at least a
little. Plus hours of enjoyment spent in such a garden should
lower it further. Insofar as alienation, purposelessness,
and poor self image are an underlying part of what ails
members of modern American society, permaculture is an important
therapy. We are not, however, just arguing for gardening
as therapeutic, but for added benefits from a particular
form of gardening that is unusual, at least in our culture.
Permaculture gardening fulfills and expands these ordinary
gardening benefits.

If you
were to go past a permaculture garden or farm, you would
swear you had entered into a jungle, or that the people
owning the land were pack rats. You would find fruits and
vegetables strewn apparently haphazardly across the property
with what appeared to your eyes as weeds taking over the
landscape. Yet, as it is taught in chaos theory, what appears
random is another kind of order. It is this kind of order
that permaculture gardening thrives upon.

Permaculture
gardening focuses on beneficial relationship among all elements
of the garden. For example, fiddlehead ferns—a likely
inhabitants of a Maine permaculture garden, because they
are indigenous to our bioregion and a local delicacy--like
shaded areas and would do well under trees placed strategically
near damp areas such as streams and small ponds. Such “water
features” do triple duty in the garden, moderating
the microclimate, irrigating the soil, and providing pleasurable
aesthetics. Permaculture takes “companion planting”
to a new level of complexity. It invites beneficial birds
and insects to do the gardener’s pollinating and seeding
for her.

Furthermore,
the natural emphasis on diversity within a permaculture
garden reduces the risk of the proliferation of bugs that
see rows and rows of the same crop as prime pickings. One
can also lessen the risk of disease by the conscious utilization
of relationship. For example, strategically placed garlic
will help ward off disease as well as provide you with a
blood builder. There may be more truth to the idea of garlic
warding off vampires than meets the eyes. It truly does
ward off blood feeding varmints. Various medicinal herbs
would be easily at hand throughout the garden, allowing
you to cultivate what you find most beneficial to your health.
Everything in the garden is chosen to help sustain the soil,
other plants,, beneficial birds and insects, the gardener,
and the wildlife with which we share our habitat. Health
for all involved is the primary product in a thriving, diversified
bio-community.

One can
also choose relations in a permaculture garden that further
reduce the risks of predatory creatures such as fox or deer.
For example, if you raised chickens for meat and eggs, as
tools in turning the soil through pecking, and as a fertilizer
through their droppings, a good dog can keep the foxes away
from those chickens. That same dog can also keep the deer
out of your corn. Like you, dogs and chickens have multiple
functions. Meanwhile, on the outside edge of your surrounding
hedge, you can provide food for the same beautiful wildlife
that you would consider an invasive pest if it ate your
crops. A well-planned permaculture garden uses all of those
functions, calling the process “stacking”. Everything
is intertwined in a permaculture garden! You help the dog
by providing shelter and a loving home, and she helps the
home be productive! These are prime examples of how relationships
are seen in permaculture gardening. These complex relationships,
in turn, helps reduce spiritual and psychological alienation
because you start seeing yourself as part of the process!
As much as you are using the garden for your benefit, the
Garden is using you for hers! You begin to relate to Mother
Nature, not as a metaphor, but as a living, breathing relative,
essential to your family structure. She actively nurtures
your health and well-being, as you do hers.

Another
advantage of permaculture gardening is that it does not
produce waste. Biological products such as dried out grass,
vegetable clippings and peelings, or over-ripe, unharvested
produce are used in the garden. Everything that doesn’t
directly feed people or animals is returned to the soil
to feed it. Indeed, if human and pet feces are properly
composted, even they make excellent fertilizer. (See The
Humanure Handbook by David Jenkins,1999.) Our experience,
even as novice permaculturists, has allowed us to cut garbage
back to one bag every two weeks. As we produce more of our
own food, bringing in less packaging, that should reduce
even further. This is not only beneficial to the reduction
of harmful landfills but also serves as meditative value
in seeing how nothing is wasted in Nature. Why, even death
herself can be seen as a life-giving process in studying
a Permaculture Garden. Everything gets composted to build
the soil. Working a permaculture garden allows you to relate
to it meaningfully and can lead to spiritual insight. Gardening
leads to a sense of connection. This is what the term “religion”
means, to connect!

Permaculture
gardening further leads to a less labor-intensive lifestyle
because you are co-operating with Nature’s own process.
This does not mean it is easy at first. Getting a garden
going is hard work. However, the right plants and animals
in relationship to the whole garden and your bioregion will
mean that Mother Nature will eventually do most of the work.
Hence, the permaculture garden gets you closer to the lifestyle
of the old hunting / gathering societies which scholars
say worked an average of 4 hours per day. The rest of the
time they spent telling stories, singing, and otherwise
building strong human relations. Increased recreation, shared
laughter, and music have long been acknowledged as good
medicine. Of course, in this day and age, we probably have
to continue working for pay. However, with the extra produce
of the garden, perhaps that need too will lessen; and, if
that lessens, so will the demand for gas and your time.
More time with the wife / husband and kids is not counterproductive.
The benefits are multiple.

In short,
a permaculture garden has the potential for creating a positive
cycle—the inverse of a vicious cycle--for you in terms
of lessening your dependence on grocery stores, gas and
a traditional job. Reduction in these stresses is bound
to create greater mental health, lessening symptoms such
as depression and, chronic fatigue. It provides intrinsic,
purposeful exercise and healthy food, both of which should
greatly mitigate obesity. You would eliminate much of your
exposure to toxic additives and packaging, and allergies
might just disappear. As a side-effect, your ingestion of
refined carbohydrates and additives that activate arthritis
and numerous other aches and pains should naturally reduce,
as you enjoy the natural treats your garden offers you.

Permaculture
also has the potential to expand your social life. It could
increase community with some outreach and interested parties.
What if some of your neighbors pitched in on an allotted
piece of property and everyone worked together in making
the garden happen? Again, perhaps you can reduce your dependence
on the big chain stores, which, in turn, helps the environment
and the social conditions created by monoculture farming.

At this
point, the benefits of permaculture gardening transcend
personal physical and mental health therapy. We are brought
back full circle to the consideration of permaculture as
a viable political answer to the social ills created by
the global economy. Permaculture gardening is a sustainable
way of life that creates robust local economies. Would slave
labor in South America continue if we designed self-sustaining
economies? Perhaps we would still import. After all, global
trade has been around for a long time. Yet, if we were to
become more sustainable at local levels, perhaps we could
decrease and ultimately eliminate these kinds of acts where
our farming brothers and sisters in our country and throughout
the world are enslaved.

In conclusion,
we would like to consider the spiritual benefits of permaculture
by enticing the reader into a meditation on the Goddess
Copia. Copia is an ancient Roman Goddess identified as Abundance.
Her counterpart in the Orient is Lakshmi, identified as
the creative power (Shakti) of the Absolute, offering her
devotees wealth or abundance. Likewise, in the Bible’s
Book of Proverbs, Wisdom (called Sophia in Greek and by
modern Orthodox Christians and seen by many ancient Christian
and Jews as the Creativity of God) says that She is more
precious than jewels. As permaculture gardening teaches,
the diversity of Nature is indeed more precious than jewels
for diversity is primal in developing healthy environments
as well as people.

Interestingly,
Copia’s symbol, the Cornucopia or horn of plenty,
was overflowing with fruits, grains, and vegetables. Copia
reflects the richness of diversity. It is this same richness
of the Goddess that we can reclaim for ourselves through
permaculture gardening. Combining permaculture gardening
with learning to forage in the forests for food offers us
the potential of learning about the world and, more importantly,
ourselves. According to the words of many and diverse ancient
wise teachers, we are reflections of that world and learning
about one is learning about the other. So, the choice becomes:
do we see ourselves as standardized, isolated productions
of our biology and environment or do we reflect the rich
diversity of Nature that thrives on relationship? Perhaps
it is in that diversity that we will find the whole within
ourselves. As some physicists now teach, the universe is
akin to a holograph where each part mirrors the whole (Talbot,
1991). Alternatively and much more poetically, William Blake
puts it:

To
see the world in a grain of sand
and eternity in an hour. (Briggs and Peat, p. 112).

Perhaps
in the end it truly will be in a return to the Garden where
we will find our holiness by gazing into the face of a flower
only to find ourselves gazing back. It is then that we see
we have never left Paradise at all!

Burl
Hall, MA, and Merry Hall, PhD, are directors of Nature’s
Wisdom, with a mission to develop community that fosters
peaceful, sustainable lifestyles and promotes the unfolding
of personal potential. They are beginning a one-acre permaculture
garden in Bowdoinham that they will use as a teaching/meditation/gathering
site. Burl Hall is a counselor, ordained minister, and author
of Sophia’s Web: Understanding the Unity and Diversity
of Religion, Science and Ourselves. Merry Hall, certified
as a priestess, with a PhD in education, is an experienced
teacher and leader of rituals that reconnect us with our
health.